In the early days of computing, data was transferred between computers by physically transferring the data encoded in physical media, including punch cards and, later, magnetic disk platters. With the advent of sophisticated, high-bandwidth electronic communications media, data-transfer protocols, and various higher-level protocols, such as HTTP over TCP/IP, data transfer between various types of computer systems, including main frames, high-end servers, and PCs has become routine and extremely economical. For example, during the span of a second, enormous amounts of textual, graphical, audio, and video data are transferred across the world between web servers and PCs via the Internet.
During the past ten years, there has been a spectacular increase in the availability and use of wireless, hand-held electronic devices, including cell phones, email devices, personal digital assistants (“PDAs”), and other such devices. Although the sophistication and capabilities of these small, hand-held devices have increased significantly, they are still generally far less sophisticated, and have far less computational power than, personal computers and computer systems. Moreover, these devices are generally interconnected through different communications infrastructures than those used to interconnect computer systems, although, in certain cases, both computers and hand-held electronic devices may be interconnected through common communications media.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical computer, hand-held-device, server, and communications environment. In FIG. 1, a high-end server system 102 is interconnected with a remote personal computer (“PC”) 104 via the Internet 106. The Internet 106 transfers data packets through various physical communications media, including high-bandwidth optical lines, telephone lines, a variety of routing computer systems, and other communications media, including local networks and local wireless networks, using a complex, hierarchically organized set of protocols. Cell phones 108 and 109 are connected through the phone network 110. The phone network employs different protocols and different physical communications media, although, as pointed out above, the phone network and the Internet may share certain physical communications media. Communication between cell phones 108 and 109 via the phone network 110 is robust, user-friendly, and extremely economical, just as data transfer by file-transfer protocols, email, and Internet browser applications through the Internet is extremely robust, user friendly, and economical. However, in many cases, data transfer and communication between cell phones 108-109 and server computers 102 and PCs 104 is difficult, not user friendly, time consuming, and relatively expensive.
FIG. 2 illustrates, using the illustration conventions of FIG. 1, a scenario in which economical and user-friendly data transfer from a cell phone to a personal computer would be desirable. As shown in FIG. 2, the cell phone 109 may be used to record a digital image of a scene 202 via a digital camera commonly included within cell phones. However, most cell phones have only limited capacity for storing these digital images, and currently, there are few practical services available for transferring digital images from cell phones to other devices and systems. It may be possible to physically transfer the image from cell phone 109 to PC 104 via a removable memory device, and it may also be possible to transfer the digital image from cell phone 109 to PC 104 using a physical cable for electronically interconnecting 204 the cell phone to the PC. Of course, while direct electronic connection through cables requires that the cell phone be brought to the location of the personal computer, or vice-versa, it is often a relatively cumbersome, not-user-friendly, and slow procedure, involving loading special software, purchasing cables compatible both with the cell phone and the personal computer, and other such tasks. While removable memory-storage devices can be used to store digital images transferred from the cell phone until the removable storage devices can be, in turn, physically transferred to the location of the personal computer, purchasing removable storage devices with sufficient storage capacity that are compatible both with the cell phone and the personal computer may represent a challenge for many users, and removable storage devices may be lost, damaged, or intermingled with other removable storage devices containing other types of data. It is also possible, in certain cases, to transmit digital images from the cell phone 109 to the phone network 110, and from the phone network to the Internet 106 for final transfer to a PC or server using specialized multimedia messaging protocols. However, acquiring access to such protocols may require installation of applications on the cell phone and relatively cumbersome data entry to the cell phone in order to install the transferred applications and to direct transfer of digital images to a desired server or personal computer. Moreover, in many cases, the transfer is not secure, and may not be reliable. The occurrence of various types of errors during transfer, for example, may result in loss of the digital image.
The difficulties associated with transferring digital images from cell phones to personal computers, from a first cell phone to a second cell phone, and difficulties associated with transferring other types of data from cell phones and other types of electronic, hand-held devices to personal computers and remote electronic, hand-held devices are becoming more noticeable and annoying to consumers as the capabilities of electronic, hand-held devices increase, and as consumers become more familiar with the existing, highly robust, and user-friendly data-transfer systems for transferring data between and among personal computers and servers. Therefore, users, manufacturers, vendors, and developers of cell phones and cell phone-related technologies have all recognized the need for a more robust, user-friendly, efficient, and economical method and system for transferring data between cell phones and computer systems, between various types of electronic hand-held devices, from personal computers to electronic hand-held devices, and other such data transfers in heterogeneous environments.